2. Download CCleaner and run that afterward to help assure traces are gone.
3. Go to the Start button and type in msconfig.exe and if in Vista, run as Administrator. Go to your Startup tab and look at all items your are starting up. You don't need the Adobe Preloader, Adobe Updater, Java Updater, QuickTime Updater, etc. Uncheck all of those. Check all the rest of your loading items on in Google by typing in the program name (comes right before “.exe”). If you need to feel comfortable with getting updates to all of the above programs, download Secunia PSI and have that run in their place. It is much smaller and checks a ton more programs.
4. Make sure your antivirus and antispyware aren't bogging your system down. The tightest antivirus is probably ESET’s NOD32. Others to consider are the free Avira, but AVG and Avast both take quite a bit of resources. For free, get Avira.
Run the Disk Defragmenter after all the above. You will have probably gotten yourself back to the best speed you had before.
I have ESET. Heard about it on Free Republic :)
Love it.
Blogger: I can't say without looking, there's a number of factors that can be causing the slow boot times. If it has changed since the Geek Squad had their hands on it, then they can fix it. They probably changed some things, or didn't reset or tweak some things, BIOS settings, drivers et al, for a new motherboard. There can also be starup programs that were not there before, can't say. It's never easy to diagnose 'puter problems in these forums. If you have a geek squad type friend perhaps he can come over and correct it for you. If not, you might have to take a trip. Another option down the road would be learning more about your system, because, despite the best efforts of M$, Dell, HP and others; it's not an appliance, and they're all different. It is an intricate, complex tool. Learning more about it, and how it works is never going to be a bad thing.
bump thanks for the check list and the Avira info.
Good post.